That Wasn't My Paper
Further report from the medievalists' conference:
This morning, I went off to a session, and I got there early, to get a seat at the back so I could knit -- note knitting content, please -- and it turned out that the moderator of the session wasn't going to be able to be there, and also one of the presenters wasn't going to be there, though she'd sent her paper, and so the two people who WERE there to give their papers asked me if I could read it.
And, you know. It's a grueling thing, giving a paper, and it's even more grueling if it's at the Big! International! Medieval! Congress!, and it's even more grueling than that if you're young and not an established scholar, which both these presenters were, and I said, of course, I can read the paper; give it to me so I can look it over.
Which I did.
And it turned out it was one of those Papers From Hell. The kind that has no point. And goes no where. For a while. And also this one contained dialog.
By God, I read that paper. I figured my job was not to discuss the paper. My job was not to distance myself from the paper, thereby making it clear that I, a scholar, had judged its quality to be not quite ok. Nope. My job was to read the damn thing.
So I did, and I read it as well as I possibly could, giving charming emphasis to bits of the dialog. Oh, I did it up right.
I did it so well that people tried to get me to answer questions about it.
I was slightly mollified by the fact that the session was entirely out of my field, so there weren't any medieval drama scholars there to get confused about whether or not I had actually written the thing, but then when I went to lunch it turned out that the scholar my editor wanted me to meet had been at the session.
Well, I said, did I in any way make it obvious that I thought I was reading several pages of trash?
No, she said, you did NOT.
Good. The Oscar, please.
Now I am up in the computer room -- they're setting up the dance downstairs -- and the reason I am updating my blog at 9:30 at night, when I would usually be doing something that was NOT that (like reading Proust, Second Volume), is that I just went to an evening session, and the reason I went to the evening session was that one of the medieval drama scholars was giving a paper concerning computers, so some of us went to the session so as to be friendly faces in the audience, and sure enough they were missing a moderator, too, and also TWO people couldn't be there to give their papers, but other people (NOT ME) had come along to the conference to give the papers instead, but everything was going along fine, until the last paper, which concerned an absolutely brilliant database in Middle High German, which was breathtaking --
or would have been if the Net had been cooperating, which it wasn't, so everything that the presenter (who was a substitute anyway, you understand, and like me this morning trying to do justice to a paper he hadn't written) tried to do took a loooooong time. A loooooooooooong time.
And so the session went over by half an hour or more and here I am.
I didn't leave, though, because who knows, maybe someday I'm going to have volunteered to help out a colleague by giving a paper I didn't write, involving use of a computer and a recalcitrant Net, and there I'll be, hoping people aren't going to strangle me. And I'll survive, on account of having built up credits this very evening.
So. My day, by me. My plan now? A little hiatus on charity, I think. No more charitable actions for a while. So do NOT be telling me you need me to read anything, or listen to anything...
wait a minute...
I'm giving my own paper tomorrow; who knows what might happen. I mean, as far as I know all three of us in the session are here, and we have a moderator, but you never know. I might need some of that charity backlog. Better not swear off it yet.
Next decision: Do I go to the dance, or no? Hmmm...medievalists get down....
This morning, I went off to a session, and I got there early, to get a seat at the back so I could knit -- note knitting content, please -- and it turned out that the moderator of the session wasn't going to be able to be there, and also one of the presenters wasn't going to be there, though she'd sent her paper, and so the two people who WERE there to give their papers asked me if I could read it.
And, you know. It's a grueling thing, giving a paper, and it's even more grueling if it's at the Big! International! Medieval! Congress!, and it's even more grueling than that if you're young and not an established scholar, which both these presenters were, and I said, of course, I can read the paper; give it to me so I can look it over.
Which I did.
And it turned out it was one of those Papers From Hell. The kind that has no point. And goes no where. For a while. And also this one contained dialog.
By God, I read that paper. I figured my job was not to discuss the paper. My job was not to distance myself from the paper, thereby making it clear that I, a scholar, had judged its quality to be not quite ok. Nope. My job was to read the damn thing.
So I did, and I read it as well as I possibly could, giving charming emphasis to bits of the dialog. Oh, I did it up right.
I did it so well that people tried to get me to answer questions about it.
I was slightly mollified by the fact that the session was entirely out of my field, so there weren't any medieval drama scholars there to get confused about whether or not I had actually written the thing, but then when I went to lunch it turned out that the scholar my editor wanted me to meet had been at the session.
Well, I said, did I in any way make it obvious that I thought I was reading several pages of trash?
No, she said, you did NOT.
Good. The Oscar, please.
Now I am up in the computer room -- they're setting up the dance downstairs -- and the reason I am updating my blog at 9:30 at night, when I would usually be doing something that was NOT that (like reading Proust, Second Volume), is that I just went to an evening session, and the reason I went to the evening session was that one of the medieval drama scholars was giving a paper concerning computers, so some of us went to the session so as to be friendly faces in the audience, and sure enough they were missing a moderator, too, and also TWO people couldn't be there to give their papers, but other people (NOT ME) had come along to the conference to give the papers instead, but everything was going along fine, until the last paper, which concerned an absolutely brilliant database in Middle High German, which was breathtaking --
or would have been if the Net had been cooperating, which it wasn't, so everything that the presenter (who was a substitute anyway, you understand, and like me this morning trying to do justice to a paper he hadn't written) tried to do took a loooooong time. A loooooooooooong time.
And so the session went over by half an hour or more and here I am.
I didn't leave, though, because who knows, maybe someday I'm going to have volunteered to help out a colleague by giving a paper I didn't write, involving use of a computer and a recalcitrant Net, and there I'll be, hoping people aren't going to strangle me. And I'll survive, on account of having built up credits this very evening.
So. My day, by me. My plan now? A little hiatus on charity, I think. No more charitable actions for a while. So do NOT be telling me you need me to read anything, or listen to anything...
wait a minute...
I'm giving my own paper tomorrow; who knows what might happen. I mean, as far as I know all three of us in the session are here, and we have a moderator, but you never know. I might need some of that charity backlog. Better not swear off it yet.
Next decision: Do I go to the dance, or no? Hmmm...medievalists get down....
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